Nikita Zvezdov was just 15 years old when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He was drafted into the Russian Army shortly after his 18th birthday in April 2024. Shortly before that, he had failed the vocational school he was studying in Krasnoyarsk and he believes his expulsion was deliberate.
Over the past few years there have been reports that Russian students were not only recruited into the army, but were also prevented from passing exams or were deliberately left out, so as not to hinder their registration. This information has not been verified.
In May 2024, after receiving his conscription notice, Zvezdov was assigned to military unit 25573 near Ussuriysk. Soldiers serving in this unit are often killed and there have also been reports of harassment, extortion and assault. On various Internet forums, this entity is famous for its criminality.
Zvezdov said that unit officers pressured him and other conscripts to serve longer in the army. “I promised myself and my relatives that I would not sign any contract for [conflict],” Zvezdov said, adding that he had never wanted to fight against Ukraine before.
Zvezdov continued, “They sent me to a training ground where they did whatever they wanted – the officers shot many conscripts in their legs, beat them and punished them for everything they could and couldn’t do.” “Do 200 pushups in a gas mask and run 50 laps in a bulletproof vest with 25 to 30 kg weights.”
Zvezdov said he began having suicidal thoughts and even tried to jump off a cliff, but authorities stopped him from doing so. After that, another officer pressured him to sign a service contract.
The young man is not alone in this experience. The Russian military is facing personnel shortages and soldiers are routinely pressured to serve for long periods of time.
Mothers of several Russian soldiers told this to Russian media outlets astraWho operates mostly through his Telegram channel and has been designated a “foreign agent” by the Russian government, that his sons were duped or harassed into signing the contract.
‘No option but to run away’
A month after signing his contract, Zvezdov was told he was being sent to units operating in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine near Melitopol, which were renowned for high rates of casualties. “I realized that theoretically I have no choice but to run. You can’t even wait for it,” he explained.
After Zvezdov received his first salary as a soldier – 40,000 Russian rubles (€450/$510) – the young man applied for leave, ostensibly to stock up on commissions before going to the front. An ex-convict, who had also been recruited, was tasked with monitoring him.
Zvezdov had to contact him via WhatsApp every few hours. But he was lucky – his mind didn’t focus so much on work. Zvezdov threw away his uniform and fled to Armenia.
He was not actually classified as a fugitive for the next six months. By then Zvezdov had traveled further, first to Bosnia and Herzegovina, then to Croatia, where he applied for political asylum.
But without waiting for a decision on his asylum application, the young Russian moved again, arriving in December 2025 in Germany, where his grandfather lives. In Germany he once again applied for asylum.
German authorities rejected their application, citing the EU’s so-called Dublin rule, which means the state an asylum seeker enters is responsible for their application. In Zvezdov’s case, it’s Croatia.
Germany was to send Zvezdov back to Croatia within six months; Its deadline will be the end of July 2026. If he is not deported, responsibility for his asylum application will return to Germany.
However, according to human rights activists, Russian fugitives have almost no chance of being approved for asylum in Germany. This is despite the fact that the previous German government, which was more left-wing politically, had said in 2022 that conscientious objectors and fugitives deserve protection.
But public statements by politicians make no difference to interpretations of the law, said Alexey Kozlov, manager of human rights and research projects at Solideras in Berlin, an organization that supports civil society in former Soviet Union states. Many similar applications have been rejected on the basis that deserters do not face a “real risk” of serious persecution or deployment to Ukraine if returned.
The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees or BAMF confirmed this. According to BAMF, each asylum application and the applicant’s risk of persecution are examined on an individual basis.
“Protection is only granted where there is a genuine, personal and reasonable fear of persecution,” BAMF said.
Makeshift prisons and torture chambers
In fact, there are hundreds of reports that Russian deserters were sent directly to the front lines and mistreated. Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, media outlet Astra has identified 29 illegal detention centers for Russian conscientious objectors, mostly in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian regions of Luhansk and Donetsk, but also on Russian territory.
Improvised prisons are set up in basements, abandoned industrial buildings, camps, private homes and other structures. Thousands of Russian soldiers and Ukrainian civilians, including wounded and disabled persons, are housed there. In prisons, officials extort money from prisoners, urinate on them, starve them, beat them, torture them, or even kill them.
According to Astra, the Russian military has set up something like a “torture chamber” at the Petryevka mine in Donetsk.
“They bring soldiers there with bags over their heads,” a former Russian soldier told Astra, speaking on condition of anonymity. He absconded from his unit in 2024. “They don’t give them food. If you want to go to the bathroom, they give you a bag and tell you to go. They hung us from the ceiling by our hands and feet.”
The former deputy platoon leader was imprisoned there along with the men under his command because they refused to go to the front lines. He said that almost all his men were killed there.
A total of 126 people were deported back to Russia in 2025, according to data from the Bundestag, Germany’s parliament. Solideras’s Kozlov said that since Germany’s new coalition government took power a year ago, the already slim chances of asylum for Russian deserters are now practically zero.
Church asylum delays deportation
As for Zvezdov, after being refused asylum in Germany he managed to obtain what became known as “church asylum”.
Church asylum – or “Kirchenasil” in German – is when a congregation agrees to temporarily shelter refugees facing deportation. The Church has no legal right to asylum in Germany, but in practice, if a Church grants someone asylum, the state will often stop deportation proceedings and review the case.
Because of this, Zvezdov was able to move from a refugee camp in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia to a church near Aachen. There, he spends most of the day working in the kitchen or in the fields; This move has allowed him to remain in Germany for now.
At the camp where he was previously living, German police came to collect him on the night of 16 June. If he had been there, he would probably have been deported to Croatia the next day.
Now the young Russian is counting down the hours until July 30, when his asylum application will fall to the German authorities.
But should they reject his application, Zvezdov isn’t sure what he would do — possibly try to seek asylum in a country outside the EU, he said. He is sure that he will not be able to return to Russia for decades.
This article was originally written in Russian.